Teri - DS

Teri(65 pounds lost)

Biography:

My name is Teri and I used to be fat. I know it sounds like airing my dirty laundry within the first two sentences but as you learn more about me, being fat has taken up so much of my life that “being fat” in the past tense is very new to me.

I am 54 and have spent my life being fat. I was a chubby kid, an overweight teenager and thenas I got older being fat just became the norm. Through a marriage, having 2 children andsubsequent divorce I continued to battle my weight. I got used to trying to find new words touse instead of fat, like boney, thick, vertically challenged, and plus sized. I was really good atbeating most people to the fat punchline. But then it got real after I turned 50 and the weightkept piling on and I was diagnosed as obese. There it was right in my medical record. Buthonestly not even that was enough to shake me to make changes.

Then in 2014 my mother passed away suddenly and for the next year I lost some weight but basically hovered around 175. In the second year without her things changed. I became so sad and so angry about life. It was unfair that she was gone and I did not get to tell her all that I wanted to before she passed. Even though I had always been fat, this past year it became different, it felt different. I was no longer comfortable in my skin. I would sit and could feel the girth around my waist. It was challenging to tie my shoes, to do normal things like walk up a flight of stairs, or get in and out of the car. But still not enough to make me stick with healthier choices. I was great at starting healthier choices but they lasted a few days to a week if I waslucky. Around October of 2015 I was trying to find something that would jump start my weight loss. In my crazy mind I thought I would sign up for the Hollywood Half Marathon for 2016. I figured that would make me train and I would lose weight. Unfortunately it does not work that way unless you were willing to train, and I was not. I ended 2015 with being at 194 pounds, I kept thinking to myself how the hell did I let myself get to this point.

2016 came and I knew I had to do something, take some type of action and that action was joining Weight Watchers. Along with this, there was a San Diego Resolution Run that I had previously signed up to do on January 9th which sounded like a good motivator. It was only a 5K and my sister was willing to do it with me. So on January 9th we headed out to the race. The race did not have shirts so I had to find a shirt at home. Not easy being the size I was, but my job had recently done a heart walk in Sacramento and I received one of the shirts.. XL and neon pink. We hit the course and pretty much immediately I couldn’t do anything but walk and barely even that. If my sister had not been there with me I would have quit. I finished the 5K in an hour and felt like I was going to die. This was it I had to stick with this new plan and make the changes if not I did not see how this would end well for me.

So I kept signing up for runs because I felt it was starting to make a difference. Then all of a sudden things became real when I had lost 5% of my body weight. The runs that almost killed me were getting easier each time. Running became a larger part of the process. I reevaluatedwhat I was doing, I actually wanted to run these races and not just walk them. With all the runs I had done and sticking to the program, by May 2016 I had lost 28 pounds. What a difference being 28 pounds lighter made in doing these runs – I was so amazed!

I really focused on what was going on with my health and who was I becoming. I went from losing 6 pounds to to 9 pounds then now 34 runs later I am down 65 pounds. Although I know Weight Watchers was the starting point, nutrition will only take you so far. Running is what has saved my life in so many different ways. It has given me goals to work towards, confidence I never knew existed in me. I am a runner and I truly believe that I am Running To My Life.